Chit-chat. 505 



confess, the moment the thought occurred : and I will send it 

 to the editors, with this unfeigned and earnest request, not to 

 print it unless fully approved by them, but to apply it to their 

 Fraxinella plants. And 1 shall take special care not to repeat 

 it, until I satisfactorily find it favourably received by a majority 

 of our readers. In that case, I may vary the interlocutors, or 

 shift the scene : either to the fields in summer ; or, in winter, 

 beside the book-room fire ; assured that natural history will 

 at all times and places spontaneously furnish multiplicity and 

 variety of desultory Chit-chat. 



John F. M. Dovaston. 

 fVestfelton, near Shreuoshury, Mai/ 29. 1832. 



The Greater Toothwort {LathrcB'a Squdmaria L.). — Mr. Bowman's match- 

 less essay on this plant, replete with proofs that it is wholly a parasite, 

 and with speculations and inferences of a high order in philosophical 

 science, on the singularities in structure discovered by him in this plant, 

 will be found in the Linncsan Transactions, vol.xvi., p. 399 — 420. : a faint 

 abstract of this essay is presented in our current volume (p. 43 — 48.). 

 In line 4th from the bottom of the latter page, " the leaves of the central 

 root or caudex, is misprinted for " the base of," &c. It will scarcely be 

 wide of the present remarks, to notice the distinctions observed in tech- 

 nical botany between epiphytes and parasites. Epiphytes are plants 

 growing upon other plants, deriving from the latter nothing but their local 

 habitation; parasites grow into, and absorb their nutriment from, the 

 the plants which bear them : epiphytes are numerous within the tropics ; 

 parasites are few every where, and, in Britain, limited to Fiscum album, 

 Cuscuta europae'a, Cuscuta ^pithymum, Lathrae^a Squaraaria, the species 

 of Orobanche, and many species of i^'ungus ; perhaps Monotropa Hypo- 

 pithys, and a few other plants. Mr. Bowman, in the paper above alluded 

 to, and in our abstract of it (p. 48.), doubts strongly if Llstera Nidus avis 

 Hooker (O'phrys Nidus avis Linn.) be parasitic. 



Luminous Appearance on Flowers. — In amplification of this subject, see 

 the remarks by Mr. Green, p. 208. 



The Misseltoe (Yiscum album L.). — Ray, in his Synopsis (edition 3d, 

 p. 464.), registers, as stocks for the misseltoe, " the oak, the hazel, the 

 apple most frequently, pear, hawthorn, common maple, ash, lime, willow, 

 elm, service tree, &c." What the " &c." intended is now not discoverable. 

 At Sutton Place, Ripley, Surrey, according to the Gardener's Magazine 

 (Vol. VII. p. 365.), " the poplars and lime trees are eaten up with missel- 

 toe ;" and the writer suggests, that as truncheons of poplar planted early 

 in the spring root readily, the misseltoe may easily be established on any 

 premises, by planting thereon truncheons of poplar on which the misseltoe 

 had previously become thoroughly established. The cherry laurel (Prunus 

 Laurocerasus im., Cerasus Laurocerasus Loiseleur) will nourish the 

 misseltoe. I saw a plant established on a laurel bush, some years ago, in 

 the garden of the Rev. E. Simons, Ovington, Norfolk. The misseltoe 

 does not, I believe, admit of multiplication by engrafting, but only by 

 seeds. These are borne one in a berry, and when ripe, at Christmas time, 

 may, by the very tenacious gum which envelopes them, or rupturing the 

 skin of the berry by pressure, be readily and most persistently fixed into 

 the chinks of the bark of congenial trees. The comparatively younger 

 parts of the bark are fitter than the older and drier. Usually, neither the 



